1. Field of the Invention
The invention comprises a machine for cooling blocks of hot porous material and particularly for cooling freshly baked bread after removal from a baking oven.
2. Description of the Related Art
When bread is removed from a baking oven it is necessary for it to be cooled. The hot bread also does not have sufficient strength for any further operations to be carried out, such as slicing and wrapping of the loaves. If the loaves are wrapped for sale when hot or warm the bread deteriorates more rapidly than would otherwise be the case. Typically bread is presently cooled by placing the loaves on racks, either manually or automatically, and blowing cooling air by way of a fan or the like over the loaves. Cooling of bread loaves in this manner is relatively slow, and in addition the relatively large amounts of manual handling of the loaves in moving them from the bakery oven to cooling racks and then to the slicing and wrapping stages is relatively labour intensive, and the storage of the loaves during cooling takes up much floor space. In addition there is scope for improvements in production quality. Specialised automated relatively high speed bread cooling machines and apparatus have been proposed but none has met with widespread commercial acceptance.